The employment equity (EE) Amendment Bill &Regulations is proposing the establishment of sectoral targets to enable employers to transform workplaces.

Deputy Director of Department of Labour Employment Equity (EE) Directorate, Masilo Lefika said the EE amendments & Regulations have proposed the establishment of 18 sectors as per the classification published by Statistics South Africa.

Lefika said a notice on the proposed sector targets will soon be published in the Government Gazette for public comment. He said while the sector targets would be in place, the use of the national economic active population (EAP) as an instrument to gauge will also remain in place.

He was speaking today (October 9) during the national public hearings on the amendments to EE Act and the EE Regulations held at the Golden Horse Casino Hotel in Pietermaritzburg. Lefika further said that the sector targets would also be extended to occupational levels.

The Department of Labour has published the Employment Equity Amendment Bill and the Draft Employment Equity Regulations in the Government Gazette in response to the slow pace of transformation in the workplaces. The Department is using the public hearings to gather comments to the EE amendments.

Held under the theme: “Real transformation makes business sense” – the public hearings focus on EE reporting advocacy and the amendments to EE legislation and Regulations, designed to fast-track the transformation of workplaces.

The key objectives of the EE amendments are:

Introduction of provisions and regulatory requirements for the promulgation of Section 53 to ensure employers financially benefiting from State contracts comply with the EE Act.

To bring alignment between definitions, policy provisions and the administration systems and enhancing on the collection of data for the National Minimum Wage Commission,

Introduction of provisions in the EE Amendment Bill and regulations for the consultation and setting of numerically based sector targets across various occupational levels to ensure an equitably represented workforce,

To make reporting requirements easier for designated employers who are small employers

Lefika said: “Section 53 has for a long time been a sleeping tiger and now it has awakened”.

Another session on EE amendments & Regulations will be held tomorrow (October 10) at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban.

The public hearings on Employment Equity amendments & Regulations started on 02 October in East London. Since then public hearings have been held in east London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.